ARE “MAXIMIZERS” LESS HAPPY THAN “SATISFICERS?”

SCIENCE: Why You Always Have Room For Dessert. “The sugar in sweet foods stimulates a reflex that expands your stomach, writes senior researcher Arnold Berstad and assistant doctor Jørgen Valeur from Lovisenberg Diakonale Hospital in the latest issue of The Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association.”

My brother had a girlfriend who used the term “dessert stomach.” She was righter than we knew.

SHOCKER: Shock – Completely misleading story about Newt saying gays should vote for Obama.

Related item here.

JONATHAN ADLER ON THE NTSB: Texts, Lies, And Distracted Driving. “The National Transportation safety Board (NTSB) is supposed to be ‘an independent federal agency charged with determining the probable cause of transportation accidents’ that, among other things, conducts ‘objective, precise accident investigations and safety studies.’ So why is NTSB Chair A.P. Hersman falsely claiming that 3,000 people died in traffic accidents last year due to the use of cellphones or other ‘portable electronic devices’ while driving? As Walter Olson notes, the 3,000-death figure is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s estimate for deaths due to all sorts distracted driving, and only one-third of these deaths were attributed to the use of portable electronic devices.”

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Cameltoe Is The New Mistletoe.

SHOCKER: Marriage Chances Rise With Your Salary.

JULIAN SANCHEZ: SOPA: An Architecture For Censorship. “The Stop Online Piracy Act—a bill misleadingly named for its aspirations, not its probable effect—has provoked an outpouring of justified opposition, much of it centered on two primary concerns: The virtual certainty that it will result in the ancillary blocking of much legitimate free speech, and the damage it would do to the basic architecture of the open Internet. One point I haven’t seen pressed forcefully enough thus far, however, is that architectural and free speech concerns are not entirely independent. The practical effect of SOPA will be to create an architecture for censorship—both legal and technological—that will radically alter the costs of engaging in future censorship unrelated to piracy or counterfeiting.” To some this is not a bug, but a feature.

HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” STUFF WORKING OUT? Harper to Obama: I’ve got plenty of buyers for our oil. “Canada has patiently waited for Americans to help themselves improve our energy policy by installing a pipeline from Canada’s oil sands to our refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, but this week Prime Minister Stephen Harper signaled that their patience has limits. Speaking to CTV, Harper reminded the US that they have a very thirsty China as a potential customer, too.” This is why the “green” opposition is either incredibly stupid or just dishonest Saudi-shilling: The oil is coming out regardless of whether the pipeline gets built. The only question is whether it will come here, or go elsewhere.

UPDATE: Reader Nick Calapa writes: “What makes you think shipping Canada’s oil to China isn’t Obama’s preferred outcome?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Prof. Stephen Clark writes:

In all seriousness, Obama’s punting on Keystone is inexplicable. Does the White House really think that a decision in favor of the pipeline would be that politically damaging – when they can wrap a favorable decision in a jobs creation agenda while pointing to a map like the one you linked to yesterday? As inexplicable as that is, for the life of me, I can’t understand why Republicans – especially presidential candidates – aren’t hammering Obama every single day on this issue.

If it were me, I might take a page from Cato the Elder and conclude every speech, no matter what the topic, with the sentence, “Furthermore, I think Keystone should be approved”. It might have an effect similar to that which Cato’s apothegm had on Carthage.

Well, I don’t give many speeches, but I am continuing to blog about it.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN — OH, HELL, YOU KNOW THE REST: Obama Moves Toward War With Iran. “Quite possibly before November of 2012.”

GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE: The Painkiller That Saves Money But Costs Lives.

SHOCKING NEWS: The Green Lobby is a “Special Interest,” Too.

THOUGHT: In Inman Majors’ excellent novel, The Millionaires, a political consultant explains that there are really only two kinds of political campaigns: “Back to Basics,” and “A Bright New Day.” Given that Obama in 2008 probably soured the “Bright New Day” approach for a generation, which of the GOP candidates extant can best pull off “Back to Basics?”

MYTHBUSTER ADAM SAVAGE: SOPA Could Destroy the Internet as We Know It. “Make no mistake: These bills aren’t simply unconstitutional, they are anticonstitutional. They would allow for the wholesale elimination of entire websites, domain names, and chunks of the DNS (the underlying structure of the whole Internet), based on nothing more than the ‘good faith’ assertion by a single party that the website is infringing on a copyright of the complainant. The accused doesn’t even have to be aware that the complaint has been made.”

DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO: DOJ indicts gundealer for Fast&Furious-like sales.

ON SALE, TODAY ONLY: V-Moda Crossfade Headphones, $79.95.

KOREA: STATISM IMPOVERISHES, ABSOLUTE STATISM IMPOVERISHES ABSOLUTELY: Dan Mitchell has the data.

NOEMIE EMERY: The Tea Party Train Wreck That Never Happened. Compare to #Occupyfail.

BILL CLINTON: Press Favored Obama Over Hillary in 2008.

CHINA: Wukan forces Chinese officials to release three villagers. “The rebellious Chinese fishing village of Wukan forced the ruling Communist Party to agree to the release of three villagers detained for protesting against corruption and land grabs on Wednesday. . . . The significance of the Wukan siege and the government’s forced hand is still being digested. Never before in recent history has violent unrest by peasant villagers in China been seen to force a compromise by high-ranking Party officials.”

The people, united, will never be defeated. No justice, no peace!

TRUE: Even In A Best-Case Scenario, North Korea Remains A Big Problem.

COMEDY GOLD FROM THE DEMONIZER-IN-CHIEF: Obama White House lectures Iraqis on reaching out to political opponents.

SOPA COULD BE USED TO CENSOR CANDIDATES: I predict that it will be used mostly on candidates that Hollywood doesn’t like.

During the waning days of the 2008 presidential race, there was an important but overlooked occurrence on the John McCain campaign. In mid-October, the McCain campaign awoke to find that its Web videos and online advertisements were disappearing from its YouTube page.

The culprit turned out to be a major television network claiming they owned portions of the videos and that posting the clips was a violation of copyright law. Even though the campaign, and many others in the online community, believed the content to be privileged under the “Fair Use Doctrine,” the videos were pulled down.

Fast-forward more than three years, and a new piece of legislation is making its way through Congress that would make it easier for online campaign content and websites to be taken down. Even more concerning, if passed, this bill would allow opposing campaigns or campaign committees — not just the original content provider — to pull down websites harboring “infringing content.”

But I’m probably just cynical.

ETHICAL OIL ACTIVISTS ARE BOYCOTTING CHIQUITA. According to a press release:

Today, at noon EthicalOil.org will be staging a demonstration outside the Oliver Safeway, 11410 104th Ave in Edmonton. The demonstration will begin at noon sharp. Demonstrators will be handing out information to consumers about our boycott of Chiquita products.

EthicalOil.org has launched a campaign asking all Canadians to boycott Chiquita brands until they reverse their boycott on Canada’s ethical oil. So far, thousands of Canadians have spoken out against Chiquita’s unethical boycott of Canada’s oil sands oil through our website www.chiquitaconflict.com, our Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/BoycottChiquita and on twitter–using the hashtag #boycottchiquita.

Love the picture on their website.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR ‘EM? New York Times In Talks To Sell 16 Newspapers. “News of the sale follows Thursday’s announcement that Times Co. chief executive Janet Robinson will resign her post at the end of the year. It also continues a longer-term trend in which Times Co., facing revenue declines and debt pressures, has shrunk its media portfolio. Since 2006, the company has sold interests in television, radio and sports.” Selling off the silver to pay the rent.